Thank you very much. You know, there's 4 billion people in the world that are on social media. That really didn't surprise me when I read that because there's a lot of people out there. There's a lot of phones out there.
But here's what did surprise me. The average number of hours that someone spends on social media during the day scrolling, you know what it is? Two and a half hours. That's the average. And so that blew me away because what I don't know, like I understand what the average means. It means that my wife, who has social media, but she's on maybe five minutes a day, for every one of her that's on for five minutes a day, there's a person out there who's scrolling for five hours during the day.
So that's what blows me away because I'm like, man, it is, it's a part of our world. And I'm not anti-social media. Don't get that. Like I'm helping skew the curve on the other end from her. Like she's the five minutes, maybe I'm the five hours. So not anti-social media, but what we're finding out from now, having it for several years now, a decade or more, the research is showing a lot of things that the danger that it can be.
There's some people that are concerned because social media creates this manicured image of what life is, right? You log on and you see your friends, and they're at a nice fancy restaurant on a date in Austin. And you see it while you're cooking macaroni and cheese for your four kids, right? And you're like, well, my life is terrible, right? You see someone and they've got the brand new boat and they're out on the lake and they're living the dream. And you think the closest I get to that, it's like a bathtub. That's the, I don't have a leg.
And so people have this struggle because these manicured images. One researcher referred to it as this. He said, it's a polished illusion. I love that. A polished illusion is what social media does. Another researcher said, it's the toxic mirror through which we see ourselves now.
So really interesting when you think of that. Here's some statistics in that. That 57% of teenage girls in America, 57% have said that they have feelings that range from sadness to hopelessness because of social media. And that is up 36% over a 10-year period. So we see it. We're beginning to feel that like it's a fake world in which we live that affects us.
So because of that, there was a company that introduced a new social media. If you are 30 or younger, you recognize Be Real because Be Real is the name of the app. If you're 30 or over, you probably thought it was just a creative series. No, we just stole that idea because of what it means.
So what they do in this app, and it's actually changed now. It's not as pure as it once was. But the idea was because there's such a curated world going on. If you have the Be Real app, you're going to get a random alert throughout the course of the day. And when that alert comes on, you're going to get a random alert. And when that alert comes, you have two minutes to take a picture of yourself wherever you're at and then hit the reverse camera and take the picture of who's around you or where you are so that you can take the picture of yourself and then the macaroni and cheese. Like that was the idea.
And if you chose not to participate or you didn't get it done in the two-minute window, you weren't able to see what your friends who you're connected with, what they did. So the idea was, let's be real. Just be real. Just be real. And when you get it, here you are. And here's who you are. And we're all just going to be realistic about life.
So that's why earlier this week, I didn't do it for everybody. I sent it out to some people because I didn't want to weird people out. But you're all going to get it next week. You're going to get a random text from our brand new texting service. That was the other reason I sent it out to everybody because it's brand new. I didn't know if it was going to work. You're going to get a text that just says, hey, send us a picture of yourself right now.
And that bumper video was people from this week that just took pictures where they were at, except for our friends who actually are in the Dakotas right now. I don't think they were. They were really standing in front of Mount Rushmore right when I texted them.
So you just take it right then and there, and we're just going to have some fun with it over the course of weeks, just seeing who we are and where we are.
So here's what I think, though. Be Real was the solution to a problem of fake social media. I think, though, that same problem that Be Real was trying to solve is a problem that the church faces. Not necessarily us, maybe us, not any church in particular, but the church in general, where we are accustomed to coming to church and we present that manicured image, right?
You've had the experience. Like, you got up Sunday morning. If you got kids, they were already fighting. They were already creating some tension in the house, and then you got a little frustrated at that, and you said something, and your spouse responded. Now you're kind of in a little bit of fight. Everybody's just kind of... In that tense world, and as you're coming to church, one of the kids is complaining about how they don't want to go to church this morning, and so that turns into a fight, and so you pull into the parking lot, and you turn around, and you look at your kids, and you go, you get it together now, and you get in the car, and you're like, hey, everybody. Good to see you. Good to see you.
If you're a longtime Christian, you call them brother. Good to see you, brother. Like, that's how long you grew up in the church, and so we create this image so much so that a friend of mine said this, and I was like, man, this is so good. We had a great conversation. He said, you know, we want to be a messy church for messy people, but we don't present a messy church because people walk into our church, and we have, like, people that are warm, smiling, and shaking hands.
I said, yeah, that's the tension that we live in. I said, because we all know, we all know that we can't have the greeter that's standing there, and someone comes in, and the greeter goes, hey, how are you doing? Good morning, and the person goes, well, good morning to you. How are you? And the person goes, well, you know, I didn't sleep well last night. Thanks for asking. I got a lot of crushing debt, and I don't know what to do about it. I haven't really slept good in a month. Creating a lot of tension. My wife's mad. We're kind of at each other and stuff, but thanks for asking on your way in.
First-time guest, last-time guest, right? Like, we get, there's this tension in which we live and how we do church, and so even church can present this manicured, polished illusion.
Here's how it happens in my home. This is, this is real life. So Amanda and I, Amanda and I fight. Like, Amanda's my wife. We're married. There's nothing secret about that. We're regular people, too. We have marriage fights sometimes. Sometimes they're big ones. Sometimes doors slam. One thing that is true about all of them, all the fights are over the stupidest of things, like when you look back at it, like, and sometimes we'll be in it, and she'll make a statement, and I have to do everything I can do not to laugh, because she'll make the statement that says, it goes something like this, she's like, you know, we keep fighting about the same thing over and over again, and no other couples do that, okay?
Or she'll say, you know, no one, you know, no one, like, is, like, as messed up as we are. Now, what she doesn't know, because see what God has called her to do. She is a sign language interpreter. That's what her calling is. So she spends her days going to hospitals and schools and meets with deaf clients and they sign and she interprets what they're saying to the person. She's the go-between.
I've spent 30 years with you guys, right? Like in ministry. And so she sees a curated image of everyone's like marriages, never fight. She never sees couples fight. So she tells, and I'll tell her the things that I know. So we're in the middle of a fight and she'll say something like, you know, nobody's like this. And I'm like, well, actually, I know a couple that I've talked to this week that would like, they would love to be fighting about this rather than that. And she just doesn't know because she sees the curated image of marriage, right?
I get to see the, because of the ministry, I get to see the mess. I get to see the struggles. And so I could, I actually look at it and go, yes, we're fighting over this, but like, we're actually in a pretty good spot. This isn't that bad.
But that's what people do. So they come to church and they've got the weight of the world on them. They feel broken and they've got to the point in their life where they're like, I have no other options. I'm going to go check out a church. Maybe this God thing will solve all of my struggles. And they show up to church and what they see is everyone who has it all together.
And so they walk out believing a lie that I've got to go clean up my mess before I can go and hang out with the people of God. But there's that tension, right? Because we know there's just actually, there's just some things that in life, we're just not going to throw our mess up on everybody all the time, right? We can't do that.
If you get out of the car and instead of turning around to your kids and go, you better get it together. And instead you just all walk in here together and you're yelling at them the whole way because you're just going to be authentic and real. And they're going to be like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. And the greeters are like, good morning. And you're like, you want to take these kids? Because I'm sick of them.
Like all of a sudden, people are like, oh, what's wrong with him? Right? Like all of a sudden that's, we realize that we can't live that way. Yet we also need to live authentically.
I've got an oldest brother. I have an older brother who's here. My oldest brother, he was born without a filter in his life. He is authentic. He's real. He'll tell you like what he thinks. And many times we're like, no, no, no, just like we told him he got, he actually got married yesterday. And we told him at the rehearsal, we said, when you get nervous, you start saying things that are highly inappropriate, trying to be funny. So just stop talking now. Like say, I do, when you're asked to say I do and repeat anything the pastor says, don't say anything else.
So I'll remember the day forever. It's 2010 around Christmas time. My family is at Dos Salsas in town. My parents are in from out of town and we've got a long table and it's set up vertically at Dos Salsas. And so my parents, all my brothers, wives, kids are there in that background Dos Salsas. There's another table set up horizontally and there's another large family there. And we're taking up all of that back room.
My oldest brother looks at me and he looks at the, this horizontal table and he says, Hey, is that Nolan Ryan? And so I'm furthest away. I'm against the wall. I'm furthest away from the other table. I kind of get up and I look and just, you know, not being weird. It's just two families. I'm like, Oh yeah, that's Nolan Ryan. And so my mom's there with us. Well, my mom grew up in Alvin, Texas. She went to high school with Nolan Ryan. She was good friends with Nolan Ryan's wife. And so I said, mom, aren't I, don't you know Nolan Ryan's wife? She's like, yeah.
So she gets up, goes talk. We thought how cool it is. No one's talking to Nolan Ryan. It's his wife. It's like the celebrity for once, you know? So my mom talks to him for about 15 minutes. She comes, sits down, we do our meal. They finish before we finish. And as they're leaving, Nolan Ryan and his older son, Reed, stop at our table and they're just talking to our family like we know them.
And I'm the furthest away from them. And I'm thinking, Lord, why did you let me sit down here? I should be there because I'm going to be best friends with Nolan Ryan, like the living legend. We're going to do Christmas Eve together. This is going to be awesome. He's going to take me and I'm going to tour Texas Ranger State. That's going to be awesome.
Well, I'm at the other end, so I'm really not engaged. I'm just listening to everything. And they're talking to my family like they know us. Later, we asked my oldest brother, who's on the corner, like, do you know Reed Ryan? Because the way y'all were talking had this like familial sense. He's like, no, I've never met in my life.
Things are great. Things are just very, they're there for a while. And then brother with no filter says to Nolan Ryan, I know where this was. It was 2010 because in October of 2010, my favorite baseball team, the San Francisco Giants, won the first World Series they'd ever won in my lifetime. They beat the Texas Rangers in the World Series. Who at the time was co-owned or owned by Nolan Ryan.
And so my older brother, in the midst of the great conversation, we're all friends, looks at him and goes, hey, yeah, my little brother down there is like a huge San Francisco Giants fan. And all of a sudden, the conversation gets awkward and weird. And the Ryans are like, oh, yeah, well, it was nice meeting you. And they leave. And we look at him, we're like, what is your problem? And he's like, what?
And we said, you know what you said? He said, I just said you were excited. We said, no, what you said was, hey. You know the hundreds of millions of dollars and all the hours and stuff that you spent in trying to win the pinnacle, a World Series, and you fell just short? That guy down there was really excited about it. That's what you said to him.
And then it's just this, ugh. But you know what? He's real. And so people, he's just, he's going to say what he wants. He's authentic. But there's a time and place, right? There's a time and place where we're authentic. There's a time and place where we kind of know social cues.
That's a long setup, before we get into the Word today, to say this. You and I, we need a small group of people with whom we can be real and also grow. We need that group of people that we can be our true selves. That we need that group of people that we can share our hurts with because we can't always share it in the big group.
So I want you to go to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. If you don't have a Bible with you today, don't worry. We're going to put the verse up on the screen. We're just looking at one verse. Chapter 5, verse 14.
So the Bible is split into two sections. There's the Old Testament. It's the story, and it's a lot of history. It's the story of God and his people, the Israelites or the Jews. And it's about their covenant relationship, how God is their God and how they're his people and how they do life together.
Then you get to the New Testament, and you get the stories of Jesus, his birth, his death, his resurrection. And the end of the New Testament is a collection of letters. They were written to churches, how to live out Jesus' teachings.
So 1 Thessalonians 5, that book we're going to be reading in today, it's at the back half of the New Testament. It's a letter that a guy named Paul writes to the churches in Thessalonica, Greece, about how to live out the teachings of Jesus.
So in the first part of 1 Thessalonians, he'll give some theology, some biblical teaching. And in the back end of the letter, he's going to give some real practical things. So we're getting the one verse. 1 Thessalonians 5, 14, it's in this practical conversation.
And here's what he says. He says, Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care for those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.
We have four challenges, four challenges to live out. First one is this. He says, warn those who are lazy.
So in that time, when Paul's writing, you got to understand there's some people who are alive during that time who actually saw or knew of Jesus dying on the cross and they actually witnessed his resurrected body. So there's people that Paul's writing to that know people who know people who go, yeah, we saw Jesus resurrected. And there's people that know and saw that he ascended into heaven and they know the promise that he's coming back.
So they're living in a world of, I have friends who've seen this whole miracle and Jesus is coming back. And since Jesus is coming back, like that's all that really matters. And so there is no reason for me to punch the clock for 40 hours this week. That's what's happening in the church.
Like, why am I going to work today? Why am I hitting the grind? Because this is all for naught because Jesus is coming back. He's probably coming back next week. And so they had stopped working and they were stopped serving in the church. They were only focused on, hey, Jesus is coming back. They weren't focused on the preparation for what that meant for when he came.
So they're checked out. Well, that means that people in the church who are still working and having to take care of these people who've stopped. And so one of the commands that Paul gives is, hey, you've got to warn the lazy.
You've got to warn the people who've checked out. You've got to warn Jeff Miller. Jeff Miller is back to back to back three times in a row. Jeff Miller, a college professor heard on us earlier tonight and he actually used to be in Texas and was getting less a lot of times. You know, he was in Texas and he was with a young who's been coming back home. And Joseph was the head of that itself in Texas and he was in Texas.
And so every night after that, I wouldn't know noget if he hadn't been back home all that long. And so these are goals that we need to bring them into. And God has given us a kingdom where we're sent to be exactly right.
Cause we've been tests established watching sports, sports, sports until you tap out. So this guy's won it three times in a row. Because he won it, he got a brand new recliner, which, I mean, makes sense. He got $1,000 towards a new TV. He got $1,000 of credit to the ESPN Zone. He got a year's subscription or a year's bills paid for whatever his streaming cable satellite service was. And he won the illustrious couch potato trophy for the third time.
Now, here's what's interesting. His wife said about this, this is what I love. She said, he's driven in everything he does, which I find highly ironic. That's why I won. She said this. I love this. She said, Jeff is uniquely qualified for this. He's an expert.
Like, I think that's a compliment, but maybe it's not. I don't know. Like, is it backhanded? He was uniquely qualified to do nothing with his life, right? Or was he uniquely qualified to win the competition? I don't know. I think she was being positive.
Unfortunately, though, like that's a picture. He's back-to-back-to-back champion. In churches today, and I'll keep us out of it so you don't feel like I'm picking on you. In churches all around us today, we have some back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back couch potato champions who aren't serving, who aren't doing anything for the kingdom.
And it's different. It's not because they are expecting Jesus to come back next week. It's because Jesus has tarried for a couple thousand years. And we know the promise is true. He is coming back. But because he hasn't come back in what they thought, they've gotten distracted and are now chasing all kinds of other things.
Since Jesus didn't come back this week, maybe he's not coming back next week. Maybe he's not going to come back before I retire. So I need to make sure I get my retirement egg, nest egg squared away. And so I've got to focus all on that. And we've gotten equally as lazy, but for a different reason.
And Paul says, hey, you've got to warn the lazy. The question is, how? How do we do that? Do we find, like, the person who really excelled as the hall monitor in elementary school? You know, the kid who was really good at being a narc on all of his friends and bring that person in and go, listen, here's what we need you to do. You go find the people who aren't serving and tell us, you know, start going and tell them. That's not going to go over. That doesn't work, right?
Like, if you're going to warn somebody and they accept that warning, especially if the warning is about being lazy. Not doing what you need to do. If you're going to warn someone like that, it makes sense to do it in the context of a relationship. You need a relationship to do that.
In order to have a relationship with somebody, you've got to have time in with them. And so what we're going to see is this, what I said earlier. We all need a small group of people with whom we can be real and grow.
Because it's within that small group of people we can have the hard conversations that might be saying, hey, as a small group, like, we serve and we're doing this. And, hey, I'm involved here. And they're using their gifts and talents to serve here. And she's using her gifts and talents to serve there. And, man, what are you doing?
Because we have a relationship. And I can ask that because we're in the small group. Hey, what are you doing? The person goes, man, yeah, I know I need to serve. I need to get more involved. But I'm busy. I've got this and this and that. And you have somebody who loves you. Hey, let me help you. Let me come alongside you because God has something better for you.
And you need to experience, like, your gifts and talents being used for the kingdom of God. See how that conversation works inside a relationship with a small group. Small group of people who you can be known with. And you can have real conversations and intimacy and connection rather than just a stranger coming to you and going, hey, you need to start serving. You're being lazy. It doesn't work that way.
We need the small group of people that we can be real with and we can grow with. That's how warnings work best.
Here's what he says next. He says, encourage those who are timid. Now that seems kind of weird. The Greek word there for timid, it literally means little sold. Like your soul, you're little sold. The idea is someone who maybe once had a vibrant, exciting life. They were full of energy, full of passion, loving life. The weight of the world, difficulties, chaos in their life has shrunk their soul until it's a little sold. They're overwhelmed. They're burdened.
And Paul says, hey, you need to encourage the little sold. It's the lady who, and some of you may have experienced this and you'll empathize. It's the lady who has recently gone through the miscarriage and she's telling the story of that pain and that hurt of losing a child. And people are struggling. They're struggling with how to love her well. And she has a friend that comes up and the friend says to her, she said, I'm so sorry. And then she just stops. She doesn't have the words. She just grabs a hold of her friend and pulls her and gives her a bear hug.
And the lady telling the story had the miscarriage. She said, my friend started giving me the hug and I started hugging her back. And then there was that appropriate time. She said, I kind of let go of the hug because we'd had a good hug. And she said, my friend didn't let go. She just kept hugging. She said, so I reached in and started hugging some more. And I just held on until she let go. And then she finally let go.
And she said, it was in that moment that I knew she wasn't going to let me go. She had experienced, she knew what her soul felt, that she'd had that little soul and said, I'm going to be here with you. I'm walking with you.
You know, Jesus experienced that. Jesus, when he went into the garden of Gethsemane, if you know the story, if not, it's in the gospels, right before his crucifixion, he takes his small group. It's a bunch of disciples, 12 of them. He takes his small group and he takes his little group and they go up into a garden. It's called the garden of Gethsemane. And he asks those guys, he actually says this. He says, my soul, same word, my soul is very sorrowful.
And he says, hey, small group, would you pray for me? Because I am really hurting right now. I'm scared. I don't want to do what I have to do next. Would you pray for me? And he goes and he prays on his own and he comes back and he finds the worst small group of all time asleep. They're sleeping instead of praying.
And he wakes them up and says, guys, I need you. My soul is sorrowful. Would you pray with me? And he goes away and prays some more and he comes back in there asleep again and he goes back and prays on his own. Jesus experienced what it's like to have that little soul feeling, like I need some people around me.
There's people out there. That may be you. You may be that person or you may need to be the person who encourages that person. But here's the problem. The person who has the little soul, they're hard to recognize. And they're hard to recognize, not because they're faking it because they can't fake it for too long. They'll fake it for a little bit. But as soon as they can't fake it any longer, they just disappear. They stop showing up.
They don't come because they feel the burden of the world and there's no one encouraging them. And so they disappear. And unfortunately, sometimes we miss the fact that they disappeared. But they don't if they're in a small group. If they've got a group of people that they're meeting with regularly, that they're being real and they're able to say, hey, my soul is shrinking up. Hey, I've got this burden.
And they have a good small group that is praying for them and walking through that with them. They don't disappear. And that small group and those believers start living out Paul's command here to encourage those who are timid.
You see in the pattern here, these things that we're commanded to do are very difficult to do in large groups.
Here's the third thing he says. He says, take tender care of those who are weak. It's the idea of being spiritually weak, of being spiritually immature. And that could be a younger generation. It could be a younger generation. It could be a younger generation. That's why we want to be a church that hands the keys to the next generation so they can lead a church that people are far from God want to come to.
But we have to, if you're older, if you're my age and older, we've got to lean into them because their spiritual maturity probably isn't where ours is. I mean, it shouldn't be if we've been walking with Jesus. So I've got to lean into those who are more spiritually weak. And actually the word there is similar to what we read earlier. He says, hold fast, hold fast to those who are weak. Don't let them drift away. Don't let them go.
If there's somebody that's spiritually, you come alongside them and you encourage them and you lift them up and hold tight and don't let them drift away. I mean, it would be fantastic. It would be really great if we're reading passage of scripture and you've got questions and you go, man, I don't understand that. Or is this what you mean? That somebody could raise their hand and go, hey, I got a question.
It'd be great. We can't do that in this environment, right? It doesn't make sense. But you have a question and you go, man, I'm really struggling with this. You write it down. Lo and behold, you end up in a small group of people who are seeking scripture together and chasing Jesus and praying together. That's a great place to go, hey, what do y'all think about this? I really wonder about this. I'm struggling with this.
And you go to the scripture together and your spiritual maturity begins to rise because other people are speaking into your life. You're going to the word together and you're praying together. Happens best in a small group. It happens best where you can be around some people who know you, who you can be real with. And then you grow together.
That's how you raise up spiritually weak people, spiritually immature with discipleship, with other people pouring into them.
This is going to sound really simplistic and I don't mean it to be, but this week I was reading some stuff about Columbine. Happened years ago. Younger people who were born after the Columbine event. We know the word Columbine. It's one of those like markers in the history of our country. It ushered in a wave of craziness when it comes to public shootings and things like that.
And I don't mean to say be simplistic and I'm not pointing the blame, but it's somewhere else because I know it's much more complicated. But here's something I learned that's very interesting. One of those young men grew up in church. His family attended church pretty regularly.
And as I was reading that, I was just wondering, because I was reading it and it had this sermon on my mind. I was wondering like, I wonder what would have happened if that young child who obviously was spiritually immature simply because he was young. What if some adults in that church had just leaned in? Maybe they did. I don't know.
What if they had leaned in and held tight and didn't let him drift? And when he didn't show up for something they were doing in kids ministry or student ministry, something like that, somebody knew and somebody reached out and said, hey, you matter. I want you to come. I just wonder.
Again, maybe it happened. I don't know. And I know it's not as simplistic as that, but I just wonder maybe the course of history might've been different because believers held tight to someone who was spiritually immature.
Again, I'm not offering a simple solution for something that that's more difficult, but you get the point. We're to hold fast to those who are weak.
It works best in that small group. And he says this, he closes and he says, be patient with everyone. People get on your nerves, right? Like just, I mean, people that are different than you. And so here's what we do. It's much more easy for us to isolate than it is to deal with people that get on our nerves.
You know, every time we choose to isolate rather than engage with people, we actually take a couple steps back away from learning how to be patient, right? Because you learn patience by being with people who are weak. And so here's what we do. We're to hold fast to with people that cause you to be impatient, right? That's how you work that muscle, but working that muscle is difficult.
And so we just isolate. And when we isolate, we don't strengthen the muscle of patience. And we go back to another thing that Paul said to a church in Corinth that he wrote. When he defines love and he says, love is patient is one of the things that he describes love as.
What we discover is when we choose to isolate, we're choosing to be unloving. We're choosing not to grow that love that God has put into us and expects to do. You actually need to be around people so that you can learn to be patient.
And one of the best ways to do that, again, the theme is the same, is with some people that you're meeting with regularly, that you can be real with and they can be real. Because when they start bringing their mess and you start sharing your mess and other people start sharing their mess, you're going to find some times, I promise you, I've lived this in my life, where you have to learn to be patient.
So he says, 1 Thessalonians 5, 14. He says, brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy, encourage those who are timid or small-souled, little-souled, take tender care of those who are weak, spiritually immature, and be patient with everyone.
And it just works best when we practice that in a smaller group.
So here's our next steps. One of the things we say at City Church is like, one of the things we value is taking next steps. We want Sunday to impact Monday. We don't want people to come in, get a Bible study, check the list, and then go home. God's Word is powerful and transformative, and it should and can change your life.
So we've got to hear this Word, and then we've got to think through like, how do we apply the Word? So here's what I'm going to ask you. It's an easy ask. I'm not going to ask you to join a small group. I mean, I will later, not today.
Here's what I'm going to ask you. Would you just commit your next step to praying this week and asking the Lord, to prepare your heart to engage in the Word and prayer and community with some other believers, other people who are Christians? Would you just pray?
Because here's the thing. If I asked you right now, hey, who wants to be in a small group? Lots of people go, I'd like to, but I'm busy. I got this happening, and this happening, and this happening. Or, man, I just don't know anybody. Or, deep down inside, you know, and this is true, this is true of me, you know, what if I'm the lazy person? What if I'm the, spiritually immature person? What if I'm the, what if I'm the person that's small-souled and people are going to get all up in my business? I don't really want people in my business. I'd rather just isolate.
And so some people go, I don't want to do that because my mess is going to get in everybody else's mess and it's going to be super, super messy. But we're a messy church for messy people. And we know and we believe that God is going to take us out of our mess and move us towards him every day.
And it happens best when we have other people walking with us. You need that. So I'm just asking you, would you pray?
Right now already, we've got a men's group that's meeting on Wednesday for Bible study and prayer at Lamp Post Coffee. We've got a small group for parents with kids that right now is meeting once a month. And I think they're going to up that this week or next, next week, I believe we've got a small group starting with parents of teenagers.
And at the end of this series, here's our goal. The end of this Be Real Series is to be a parent of teenagers. And at the end of this series, here's our goal. The end of this series, we want to launch about five or six more small groups to add to those different times of the week.
And just invite you to come dip your toe in small group life and see what it's like. We're just going to do it from the end of March to the end of May. We've got 10 weeks, which means you're going to meet, if you met every other week, five times-ish. Some may be different. You're not going to have the relationships at the end of five meetings that matches 1 Thessalonians 5:14.
We want you to just experience it, feel it, see what it could be, get a glimpse. If some groups gel and they want to go through the summer, man, we're going to high-five you and cheer you on. But in September, we're going to launch a year's worth of small groups.
Listen, it might take you a while to find the right one. That's just part of it. We're going to talk about some over the next couple weeks in this series. We want you to find that group of people.
Now, here's also want to say, we've got some that are happening now. We've got some that are going to start at the end of this series. We don't care if you're in those. We want you to have a small group of people.
Maybe you come and you go, hey, on Tuesdays, I meet with some believers, some friends, and we have lunch every Tuesday, and we talk about Scripture, and we look at the Bible, we pray together. Now, they don't go to City Church. Does that count? 100%. Absolutely. Just find your people.
Find your 2 a.m. friends. Find the people that when the bottom falls out, they're there to push you towards Jesus and His Word. That's what matters. Now, we're going to create some of those to help you if you don't have it. But I'm just asking you this week, would you just pray?
And if you would be the person that goes, listen, I don't need to pray about it. I know. I'm in. I want to be. Then maybe your prayer is, how the Lord's going to use you maybe to host a group or facilitate a group or something like that. So maybe that's what your prayer is.
Close with one story, and then we're going to sing. Philip Yancey is a Christian author, a pretty famous one. And he tells a story about his small group. He says, there's a guy in my small group. He doesn't name him. He says, he's a well-known Christian leader. And if I named him, you'd know who he was, which really makes me want to know who it is.
He says, you'd know him. He said he was going through a time in his life, it was over the course of a year or so, he had some adult children who really went off the path. And they'd actually gotten into some trouble. And he was dealing with all of that. He was paying attorney fees for his kids because it was that kind of trouble.
And so those bills were stacking up pretty high. In the midst of all of that struggle, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. It was like the bottom fell out. And he's in a small group. Philip Yancey's in there. And he says to a small group, a Christian leader loves Jesus.
He said, I have no problem believing that there's a good God. I'm just having a problem understanding what God is good for. No problem believing in a good God, so let's see what God is good for in my life. A guy who's walking with Jesus, a believer, but life is real messy, right?
He couldn't say that publicly. I don't know what he did if he's a pastor. He's not going to stand up on the stage on a Sunday morning and go, let me just share a little of my life. I'm not sure I trust God anymore. That's very damaging to your ministry. Paychecks disappears pretty quickly. He can't say that publicly.
He's got a group of people that are praying for him. He can say, hey, this is the real me, a small group of people with whom you can be real and grow. And Philip Yancey said, like, we didn't have answers. We talked and we prayed, and that kind of journey was not solved overnight.
And Philip Yancey said that he himself came across a quote. And he said, it was a quote, it was like the Holy Spirit said, this is fear. And the quote said this, For those who love God, there's nothing that's irredeemable. For those who love God, there's nothing that's irredeemable. There's nothing happening in your life that the Spirit of God can't take and turn to good.
There's no amount of ashes that he can't make beauty out of, as the Scripture says. And so this is what Philip Yancey shared that quote with his friend. And he said, you ask what God is good for. Do you think God is good for that promise? That he's going to take all of this mess and do something in redeeming for his glory and for your good?
You know, that guy didn't have a Philip Yancey in his life. If he didn't have a small group of people to share that with, it's highly likely the enemy would have picked him off and his ministry would have ended because of that. Highly likely. I say that because I've seen it happen over and over and over again.
But we need a group of people. That we can be real with. And that we can grow with. So the ask this week is that you would pray that God might create in you a heart that says, I'm in. It's going to be difficult. It's going to be messy. It may not be smooth. But I need that.
So I'm asking you to bow your heads. I want to pray that over you. And then I want to ask a question to some people in the room as well about where you are with Jesus.
Let us pray for us. First, Lord, I just ask that you would give us, Lord, a heart for community. So that when we need a 2 a.m. friend, they're there. And Lord, that you would create in us the kind of heart that when we have friends who are going through the ringer, we have friends who the bond has fallen in their life, that because we have become more like you, that we love them in such a way that we set everything aside to chase after them, to point them to you, to hold them up, to hug them, to encourage them when they need encouragement, to warn them when they need warning.
I pray that we'd be a group of people that have that kind of community. Speak to you for a second. You may have come into the room this morning and you feel like the bottom's falling out and you don't have a small group.
I do want you to hear this. A small group is not the silver bullet. Jesus is the answer to life. Small groups just help us walk towards him. But you need Jesus before you need a small group.
If you came in this morning and you don't have a relationship with Jesus, but you want one, I want to ask you to just pray this with me. I just want you to say, Jesus, I'm a sinner. Say, Jesus, I've made mistakes. Jesus, I've tried to do my life on my own and it's messed up. Say, Jesus, come in and save me. Jesus, you are king of my life.
If you prayed that prayer, in a moment we're going to sing one last song. You've got a little half sheet of paper that I hope the greeters handed you when you walked in. On that, there's a picture of a phone. It's got an 888 number. I'm not going to ask you to walk forward, raise your hand. I don't want to embarrass you. All the standing for Jesus may be embarrassing at times. I'll just tell you now.
But I want to give you that first step. Make it as simple as I can for you. During the song, would you just text that 888 number? Text the name, the word Jesus. Send us your name. I'll reach out this week and we'll schedule some time to just kind of talk about what's next for you. It's a beautiful thing. God has some great things in store for you.
There's also a way that you can ask for prayer requests by doing that. As we stand and sing, I want you to respond to Jesus in the way that you need to. So we're going to sing one last song. I invite you to stand up now and sing with us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
on Nov 14, 2024
